On Monday we celebrated the Transfiguration.

	This image of the Transfiguration comes from a beautiful website carrying a whole range of modern Maronite religious icons: www.maronite-heritage.com/html/liturgical.html

We all remember the story, which is recounted in all three synoptic gospels. Shortly before his final journey to Jerusalem, where he will undergo his passion and death, Jesus climbs an unnamed mountain, accompanied by three of his disciples, in order to pray. He is visited by Moses and Elijah. During their meeting, Jesus' humanity overflows with the light of the divine presence, shining brightly with the glory of God himself — the eternal Son of God, the image and radiance of the Father, filled with the power of the Spirit. A voice from heaven declares: "This is my beloved Son".

A sign of the destiny to which humanity is called…

The Transfiguration looks forward and backward. It is a sign both of the fulfilment of the past (Moses and Elijah), and of the anticipation of the future (the resurrection glory). But above all it is a sign of the destiny to which humanity is called. Jesus's humanity momentarily gives a foretaste of the possibilities for all who are made in the image of God, who are beloved children of God. What we glimpse here is the promise of what Eastern Christians call theosis – sharing in the life of God.

In and after his Transfiguration, Jesus resolved to exhaust the powers of evil by going to Jerusalem and surrendering himself to them, putting himself completely in their power, being killed by them.

I hope and pray that I am never called to follow that example too literally. If I am, I do not know whether I will be strong enough to do so. But let us at least acknowledge that that is what we are called do. We are not asked to fight against the powers of evil, or to conquer them through force or resistance, but to transcend them. That is the truth that the radiant light of the Transfiguration illuminates for us.

But on Monday we also marked another event; the sixty-second anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb.

The Feast of the Transfiguration was also
the 62nd Anniversary of Hiroshima…

That events of that day also brought a blinding light, but it was a different light. It was not a light which elevated our humanity or revealed our capacity or calling to manifest the divine. Instead, it opened history to the worst possibilities of humanity, when it is distorted to inhumanity.

The events of that day also brought a blinding light!

There is absolutely no doubt that the bombing of Hiroshima — along with many other acts committed on all sides in that war and later wars — is unequivocally condemned by the Catholic moral tradition. Means of warfare that wipe out whole cities, that kill thousands of non-combatants alongside legitimate military targets, or that deliberately target ordinary people in order to 'break the enemy's will' are all forbidden by Catholic moral teaching. Acts like the bombing of Hiroshima miserably fail the requirements of moral theology and are condemned. It doesn't matter whether the "good guys" or the "bad guys" are the ones doing them; that question need not even be asked. The Second Vatican Council summed the matter up in this way:

“Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and humanity, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.”

The Transfiguration and Hiroshima can both light the way …
but they light very different ways…

It is one thing to apply the dry academic precepts of moral theology to acts done by other people, at another time, and in another place. That is easy. The challenge for me is not to discern what President Truman should have done in 1945 when faced with an enemy bent upon doing evil, but to discern what I am called to do when faced with my own enemies. The Transfiguration and Hiroshima can both light the way for me, but they light very different ways.

We know already that as Christians we are called not to conquer our enemies, to defeat them in battle, or even to defeat them in argument. We are called, first and last, to love them — to love them so much that, far from killing them, we are to be ready to die for them. And everything else we do, for them or with them or to them, must be in the service of that love.

I don't say, as a result of that, that we must always and everywhere be pacifists. Perhaps I haven't the courage to say that; I certainly haven't the courage to live it. But I do say that we must question the conventional assumptions and utilitarian reasoning that can too easily justify any means to achieve noble ends against a determined, cruel, and relentless enemy.

Back to the Transfiguration for a moment. Jesus was joined in his Transfiguration by Moses and Elijah. In the Jewish tradition Moses and Elijah were expected to reappear at the climax of history, the advent of the Messiah, and that is their primary significance in the Transfiguration narrative.

But in a world in which the Transfiguration is for ever contrasted with the bombing of Hiroshima, because both are commemorated on the same day, they acquire another significance as well. Moses started his life a prophet by confronting, in Pharaoh, the mightiest monarch the world had ever seen. Elijah started his prophetic career by confronting King Ahab, who "did evil in the sight of the Lord". Both, in short, started by refusing to accept the conventional wisdom, or to yield to the established authorities. The openness to discerning truth that others prefer to avoid, and the courage to speak it, are the foundation for all prophecy.

If I am not strong enough to give up my life, perhaps I can hope to be at least strong enough to start where Moses and Elijah started; by refusing to accept the inoffensive complacencies, shared assumptions and "common sense" behind which evil lurks.

The point about Hiroshima is not that the Americans are irredeemably or especially evil; they are not. The point is that their fallen human nature, which I share, can lead them, as it can lead me, into unspeakably evil acts, and can seek to justify or excuse those acts afterwards. From the flesh-stripping, vapourising light of uncontrolled nuclear fission, we go to the darkness and shadows and corners of avoidance and evasion.

The Transfiguration lights up another way. I can't pretend that it is an easy way, but it is a way of honesty, it is a way of truth and, above all, it is a way of love.

What are your thoughts on this commentary? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

Peregrinus can be contacted at: Peregrinus <peregrinus@catholica.com.au>

©2007 Peregrinus

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